Writual takes the kind of risks that university lit-mags have to if they have any hope of publishing work that matters. At the same time, the journal does a nice job of defining its territory and doesn’t feel amateurish or desperate in its obvious desire to keep things open and accessible. Poetry is the journal’s main focus, and they favour a dry narrative poetry that more often than not eschews concerns of language and structure for an obvious, but less intricate, plot driven effect. There are also some interesting photo essays and drawings. While they aren’t entirely successful — the ‘cuttings’ series of drawings and poems is at times redundant, at times overbearing — they are always interesting. Now the one essay in the journal deserves special mention. Here a University of Guelph professor who lives in Toronto muses on the nature of American hip-hop, the cultural dialogue of rap, the diaspora of Gangsta music. Not only is the essay silly in an overt and uninteresting way, but it completely fails to mention Canadian rap music, and explore Toronto hip-hop culture. That would be an essay worth reading. Despite the criticisms, Writual is a good journal that will no doubt continue to articulate a challenging literary culture.
literary journal / #2, 62 pages / no known publisher / main creators: Jason Sebeslav, Tracy Shepherd, Esta Spalding, Mark McCutcheon, Sarah Collin, / Valerie Powell (editors) / $4 / UC 246, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1